FIT: Champion figure skaters (left to right) Elvis Stojko, Jennifer Robinson and Jeff Langdon recently underwent their summer fitness assessments in York University's Human Performance Laboratory.

Canada's champion figure skaters Elvis Stojko, Jennifer Robinson and Jeff Langdon dropped in to the University recently for their bi-annual, summer fitness assessments in the research and testing laboratory of Dr. Norm Gledhill, School of Physical Education ­ Kinesiology and Health Science.

The assessments were conducted under the watchful eye of Professor Roni Jamnik, manager of the Human Performance Laboratory.

Stojko, a former student at York, is the Canadian Men's singles champion and world singles champion and was awarded the Silver Medal at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games.

Robinson was the top skater in the Ladies' singles category in Canada in1996 and placed third in that division in 1997 and 1998.

Langdon came third in the Canadian Men's singles competition in 1998 and second in 1996 and 1997.

AWAY WITH YOU: Schulich School of Business staffers send Toronto Star editor Bob Mitchell on his way after presenting him with a $1,000 cheque for the Toronto Star Fresh Air Fund. From left are: Mary Amati, Mitchell, Helen Hundert, Filomena Ticzon, Filomena Petrilli, Mary Rosati, Nancy Sutherland and Gloria Greenberg.

This year's charity barbecue at the Schulich School of Business raised $1,000 on behalf of children's camps.

The barbecue was held at lunchtime on June 3 outside of the Schulich building. It was the fifth annual fundraising barbecue organized by the business school.

"Despite the cold weather that day, we had a good turnout," said Mary Amati, one of the organizing committee members. "We estimate that about 400 people from York University came out for a hamburger, sausage or refreshment. We find that this event always brings a good feeling of community spirit and fun, and it's for a good cause."

At the barbecue, a raffle was held for a portable compact disc player. The winning ticket was held by Barry Lane of the purchasing department.

In addition to Amati, organizing committee members included: Debbie Farrell, Helen Hundert, Paula Ironi and Filomena Ticzon, all staff members in the Schulich School of Business. The cooks and volunteers at the barbecue included faculty, staff and students from the Schulich School of Business, as well as volunteers from Grounds, Maintenance and the Instructional Technology Centre. Donations of food, drinks, supplies or cash for the barbecue were made by the Canada Bread Company, Pepsi, Molson Breweries, IceCo Ice Delivery Corporation, The Financial Post coffee shop, and Schulich's Division of Executive Development.

Bob Mitchell, chief of the Toronto Star's Peel Bureau, visited the York campus recently to accept the $1,000 cheque on behalf of the Toronto Star Fresh Air Fund, which is in its 97th year of supporting children wishing to attend summer camp. The money raised is used to pay for programs and help subsidize campers who are not able to pay the costs of going to camp. Some of the children are disadvantaged or have disabilities.

Deborah Hobson, vice-president (enrolment and student services) has announced the appointment of Ygal Leibu as University Registrar, effective Aug. 1, 1998.

Born in Rumania, Leibu has BA and MA degrees from Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

He has been the registrar at the Université du Québec à Montréal since 1978 where he has led and managed three service units ­ Admissions and Recruitment, Records Management and Student Information Systems Support. His operational responsibilities for these three units have included planning, developing, implementing and managing complex technological systems to support registrarial functions for 37,000 students.

He is the recipient of several awards for making the most effective and innovative use of information technology to improve service to students and for improving quality and productivity in university management.

The York Center for Applied Sustainability (YCAS) has received $60,000 in grants this summer from Canada Trust Friends of the Environment towards the YCAS sustainability initiative.

Secondary and intermediate students soon will measure their community's progress toward sustainability in the areas of the social, natural, built and organizational environments. This is being accomplished with software developed in partnership with ESRI/
ArcView Canada.

The software will allow students to create sustainability measurements across disciplines and to post their data on maps of their catchment areas and watersheds. It is being developed for use across the new Toronto District School Board and within the Sequin River Watershed in Parry Sound's Near North School Board.

Students from these watersheds will be sharing their data and interpretations of results with each other and with teachers partnered in the initiative. Their first collective activity will be to undertake water analysis in the five GTA watersheds friom the Oak Ridges Morraine into Toronto Harbour. Further water analysis will help them evaluate precisely how their watersheds contribute to the conditions in Lake Ontario.

Next year, YCAS will be building social environment indicators software, so that the schools can build neighbourhood sociological databases.

The 16 participants in the project include: Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) faculty members David Bell and Grant Sheng, Faculty of Education Professor Tove Fynbo, FES PhD students Ellen Meade and Sherrill Johnson, Master of Environmental Studies (MES) graduates Harminder Manota, Gustavo Moran and Tong Li, MES students James Van Loone, Derrek Evernden and James Scott, BEd (Fine Arts and Science) student Christine Fedirchuk, and Toronto District School Board students Corey Katz and Mark Templer (Don Mills C.I.) and Slava Sakhnenko (Northview Heights Secondary School).

York University and Pepsi-cola have agreed to negotiate a 10-year, $7.5-million agreement whereby Pepsi will be the exclusive supplier of a variety of cold beverages sold on both York campuses. All revenue generated by the University in this business partnership will be dedicated to enhancing the quality of student life ­ as determined by various student groups, including student governments.

Financial resources will be allotted for colleges to spend on student activities, specific student programs as determined by student groups and the Student Centre, funding for stadium upgrades, cultural activities, awareness programs, orientation, convocation, special events, student programing for Glendon students, and other enhancements to student life. An annual report will be issued each year on how the Pepsi proceeds have been spent.

The decision to enter into the agreement was preceded by a year of consultation with key stakeholders, including student governments, campus vendors and restauranteurs, faculty and administration.

Questions can be referred to beverage@yorku.ca.

This year, York University will play host to the du Maurier Tennis Open. Parking lots 3B, 3A, 1A and 5A will be utilized for this event.

Parking lot 3B will be reserved and closed effective 11 p.m., Thursday, July 30. Parking lots 1A and 3A will be reserved and closed, effective Friday, July 31 until Monday, August 10, inclusive.

Alternate parking lots are 1B, 5A and 8A, or any other parking lots that your decal permits. If special parking arrangements are required, please call the parking office at 736-5335 or ext. 55335.

Thank you for your cooperation.

The international art gallery posters in the Isaacs' poster collection includes these three from Paris, dating from the 1950s and '60s.

Avrom Isaacs, the proprietor of Toronto's respected Isaac's Gallery, has donated his collection of 390 posters to York University's Archives and Special Collections.

"This is a wonderful, eclectic collection," enthuses Curator Sharon Blady, who is currently in the process of cataloguing the posters. "I guess the best way to describe the collection is 'Everything but the Isaacs' Gallery'."

There are 226 posters of local interest ­ touting exhibitions at the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario, and local and international shows by artists such as Heather Cooper and Michael Snow. The Toronto posters also announce such happenings as the 10th anniversary of the art collective, General Idea, at the CN Tower; an album-release party for the band, Parachute Club; and a call to arms on behalf of the fight against the Spadina Expressway.

There are also many posters promoting local theatre productions, including Keanu Reeves' performance in Brad Fraser's Wolfboy in 1984 at Theatre Passe Muraille and a series of Toronto Workshop posters by Theo Dimson.

Included among the posters from other Ontario centres and the rest of Canada is a cross-section from the Montreal Olympic series, Artists-Athletes. The 1973 Winnipeg Art Gallery exhibition, The Structure of Comic Books, is represented by a poster that resembles an oversize comic-book cover, featuring such Marvel Comics characters as Nick Fury and Thor.

Of the 74 international posters, the largest groups are those from Paris in the 1950s and '60s. They include a poster featuring George Bracque's Theogonie and the trio of art gallery posters featured here, promoting the work of artists Lurçat and James Ensor and Italian sculptor Arturo Martini.

There are also several gallery posters from Amsterdam, New York, Chicago and Minneapolis. The American posters represent the work of such artists as Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenberg and Christo.

Among the several pop-culture posters is one hyping the Toronto performance of Edie Sedgewick and Ondine at a Funnel benefit.

This new collection adds to the already significant Isaacs fond in the York Archives, says Archivist Kent Hawrotth.

Commencing this summer, the University is replacing York's aging and increasingly inadequate telephone system to provide faculty, staff and students with markedly better phone service. In the process, each of the approximately 5,000 telephone sets at the York campus will be replaced with a new set. The Glendon campus was successfully upgraded earlier this year.

The new Nortel system will provide increased capacity and some enhanced telephone functions, including call display. Completion of the project is scheduled for Jan. 4, 1999.

All existing telephone numbers, both direct-in-dial and extension numbers, will remain the same; and there will be no change to the existing voice mail system. Any inconvenience to users will be minimal.

All existing services will continue to operate until the new system is completely installed. The only disruptions will occur during the period of cutover from the old system to the new (Dec. 21, 1998 - Jan. 4, 1999), and these will be minor. Security, emergency and elevator phones will be operational at all times.

Every department will be fully involved in the process and departmental designates will work with Telecommunications on the project. Costs to individual units will remain the same, provided no additional chargeable features are added.

A standard feature package designed to provide a wide range of options, including call display, will be available to all users. Calling Line Identification (call display) telephones will give users a two-line description of incoming calls. Every user will be able to block call display information on a per-call basis.

Training sessions will be scheduled in November and December, prior to the cutover to the new system, to ensure that users are able to use their new telephones with ease. Written material and a telephone help-line also will be available.

Sixteen six-year-olds graduated from the York University Co-operative Daycare Centre on June 11, and we are reliably informed that the graduation exercises were even bigger and better than last year's. Pictured here with teacher Ottavia Piluso are, left to right, Tonia Lyons, Simon Gilbert-Johnson, Naeesha Franks, Alicia Alexander, Kai Wei Chew and Antonio Sealy. The 10 other graduates are: Lasean Ballentine, Jennifer Fatt Gass, Danielle Lew, Yuanzhe Li, Kashauna Moore, Sabah Omar, Taiya Rutty, Tracy Senjule, Unica Small and Jenny Yan. In September, the children enter a new phase in their lives: Grade One awaits.